Manually Creating Optimized Windows Images for Horizon

To have better compatibility and performance, Omnissa released a document on how to manually prepare a Windows machine as Horizon master image machine. Following is the official documentation for details.

https://techzone.omnissa.com/resource/manually-creating-optimized-windows-images-horizon-vms

For the most common use case of using vSphere VM as master image, I have summarized following high level steps for easy reading. Details of each steps can be found in the Omnissa document.

1. Create vSphere VM

2. Install Win11

3. Enter Windows audit mode

4. Install VMware Tools

5. Patch Windows fully

6. Optimize Windows with Omnissa Optimization Tool

7. Turn off Device Encryption in Windows setting

8. Disable Bitlocker by creating following registry key

          HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\BitLocker

            Create a new DWORD key

                Name: PreventDeviceEncryption

                Value: 1

9. Open Windows Service Manager to stop and disable “Bitlocker Drive Encryption Service (BDESVC)”

10. Run “Generalize” in Omnissa Optimization Tool and restart Windows

11. Clean up Microsoft Store with command:

                Get-AppxPackage –name Microsoft.Copilot | Remove-AppxPackage

                Get-AppxPackage –name Microsoft.BingSearch | Remove-AppxPackage

12. Install Horizon Agent

13. Run “Finalize” in Omnissa Optimization Tool

14. Shutdown Windows

15. Convert to template

16. Create full clone pool

----- END -----